Waves, Stars, and Other Things to Catch

Part 1

“Admit it,” Ford Davidson said to me as he looked down from where he was securing the surfboards to the top of his car.  “You regret not going out there.”

I looked past the car to the Pacific Ocean and felt myself shudder.  Ford had taken me to one of his favorite hidden surf spots in Malibu, with the intention that this would finally be the day I’d let him teach me to surf.  But even though I had my bathing suit on and had thought I’d prepared myself mentally for the concept of going out into the ocean armed with only a tiny piece of wood and fiberglass, when I’d actually gotten to the beach and seen how high the waves were, I’d chickened out.  Ford had offered to leave then, but I could see how much he wanted to stay and surf the absolutely terrifying waves.  So I’d told him to go on ahead, and had a very enjoyable afternoon, completely free from a fear of drowning—sitting on the sand, enjoying the late-afternoon sun, and watching him surf.  Ford was a nationally ranked champion with trophies and sponsorships and really terrifying scars from reefs and rocks, so it wasn’t like I’d just been watching someone constantly falling off their board, or struggling to stand up.  “Nope,” I said firmly, looking back at him.  “No regrets.  Not a one.”

“One of these days, Gemma,” Ford said as he pulled the strap around the surfboards, and then gave it a yank to tighten it.  “You’ll finally take the chance, and you’ll realize what you’ve been missing all this time.”

I just smiled at him and shook my head.  I didn’t think there was any chance of that, despite the fact that Ford had been telling me just how great surfing was for years now.

I’d known Ford pretty much my whole life.  Our fathers had been college roommates and now worked together, so I had pretty much grown up seeing Ford a few times a year, despite the fact that we didn’t live anywhere near each other.  Ford bounced between his Silicon Valley boarding school for computer geniuses; Hawaii, where his mom lived; and Los Angeles, where his dad lived.  I lived a much less glamorous life with my mother and stepfather in Connecticut, only coming out to L.A. to stay with my dad twice a year.   My dad was a failed novelist turned successful screenwriter who wrote a lot of movies for Bruce, a big-time Hollywood producer with the mansions and multiple ex-wives to prove it.  Since Bruce was spending August in Malibu, and he wanted to make sure my dad was going to get his revision in on time, we’d been staying with Bruce and Ford at the Davidson beachfront compound.  Ford’s sister Gwyneth was spending time with her mom back in Hawaii, and Bruce’s latest wife, Dakota, had been around the first day, but then had complained that the number of people in the house was stressing her out, and had taken off for a spa in Mexico for an unspecified amount of time.  So it had mostly been Ford and myself, which I hadn’t minded at all. 

“So what now?” he asked, looking down at me.  The back door was open, and he was standing on the seat to reach the top of the car.  I leaned back against the front door and looked up at him.  I’d had a crush on Ford pretty much ever since I could remember.  I’d always thought he was cute—he had tan skin, dark eyes, just a very few freckles, and black-black hair. The fact that he’d once been short and stocky, with thick glasses and serious orthodontia, had never impacted my crush at all. But at some point last year, Ford had shot up to over six feet, and now somehow managed to be both lanky and muscular.  The braces were off, and the chunky glasses had been replaced with hipster-cool black frames. Ford was suddenly really, really cute, and it was still disconcerting for me to see him this way.  But this was all moot, of course. Nothing was going to happen with us.  I was in a committed relationship with my boyfriend of a year, Teddy Callaway.  And Teddy was pretty much perfect, and we were really happy.  But that didn’t mean I could always stop myself from noticing how cute Ford was.  Or remembering what had happened between us on my thirteenth birthday. . . .